Into Thin Nether
by Kintaraheart
Summary: Over ten years ago her father disappeared from her life, vanishing into thin nether, leaving Ethyst to take care of her rapidly aging mother after their way of life was re-written with the fall of the World Tree. Now as the Legion returns yet again and their world falls to pieces, their family is finally put back together. But can mother and daughter forgive he who abandoned them?
1. On the Edge of the Coral Sea

**Hey guys. This story has been on my mind for some time. I had half the first chapter already written out weeks ago, but I just came across it in my documents. I had planned to update To Exist Together, but when this caught my eye, I remembered just how badly I wanted to write this tale.**

 **I hope you enjoy it. This one truly won't be a long story, and I mean that this time. Let me know what you think :)**

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Chapter One: On the Edge of the Coral Sea

Ethyst had not seen his face in over a decade, not since a few weeks before the fall of the world tree. Like so many others he had gone, along with her mother, to fight the Legion atop Hyjal, and like so many others he did not return. But he was not dead, no her mother had seen him with her own eyes after the battle, had heard his departing words with her own ears, had argued against his choices with her own mouth. At least, he had not died in the battle for the mountain, though whether he still lived now was unclear. She liked to think, despite her bitterness toward him, that perhaps he still survived.

When her mother had walked through their small home's door without him, Ethyst had assumed he'd died, and had been left with this conclusion for days. Her mother had locked herself in the bedroom, unspeaking, eating and drinking nothing for nearly two nights before reemerging. In the months that followed, as her mother's health slipped into ruin and white hairs replaced previously midnight colored locks, wrinkles rippling across her face and the silver of her eyes dimming, Ethyst was given only pieces of the story. Even after years she knew only vaguely what had become of him. There were still nights when she thought about questioning her mother once more.

But she didn't. Her mother was old, older than many, and the loss of their immortality had hit her hard. She'd been a priestess of Elune even before the time of Tyrande Whisperwind, had served in the War of the Ancients, had patrolled their forests during the Long Vigil. In fact, it was during the terror of the Legion's first invasion that she'd come across the man who would eventually become her lifemate. At the time he'd been her patient, a soldier who'd been nearly crushed to death by rubble, who had survived through the combination of her mother's skilled healing and a miracle. As the resistance was pushed further and further back, lost more and more ground, they had somehow managed to stay together. They were together when the Legion was driven back, when the Well of Eternity collapsed, when half the world was sundered. Afterward they'd found peace in defending their world from what demons remained, they'd wandered from town to town, ruin to ruin. Nine thousand six hundred seventyfive nomadic, skirmish-fighting years and two stillbirths after the first Sundering, Ethyst had come into existence.

She took after her father in both looks and personality. She had his height and rather broad build in comparison to her mother's willowy frame. She had silvery skin and wavy teal hair where her mother was all dark violets and blues. And like him she'd taken to the use of short swords and bows, had a talent in skinning and much prefered thick leathers to the intellect and spirit infused silk robes her mother wove in their home. She was light on her feet in battle, knew how to dual wield, and was well practiced in throwing knives and small hatchets.

In childhood, her mother had tried desperately to get her daughter to sit still and take interest in the teachings of Elune but Ethyst would have little of it. While of course she respected and revered the moon goddess, she hadn't the aptitude or desire to become a healer of any sort. She liked fighting, learning to defend herself, going out of hunts with her father during day or night.

She learned to survive in a different way than her parents, who had grown up in a time of relative peace for their people, only to be thrown into war and then a period of nomadic recovery as they tried to regain their footing. They'd grown up with the value of bloodlines, learning the ropes of societal castes and politics. They both chose the roles that were expected of them by their families. Coming from a line of priestesses in the family, her mother continued the tradition. When Ethyst's grandfather was killed in an accident, her father took over the family business as the eldest child. Then the demons came and their lives were thrown into turmoil. Her mother was, by duty, required to help heal the wounded soldiers that came her way. Her father, to defend their people as all elves capable of doing so did, became a soldier. When that time was over and the world was left in literal pieces, they collected themselves and each other, and then went on to collect what was left of their people too.

Ethyst was born into a world already broken. Bit by bit it had healed in the last almost ten thousand years, but the battles and hardships were far from over. When she was born, they'd settled in the ruined forest named after their corrupt queen, in the ruins of what had once been the center of their world. Though the land was said to be cursed, they'd wanted to raise her in peace, somewhere far from the current conflicts of Felwood and the Troll and Tauren tribes scattered in the forest and to the south. Though Azshara still had pockets of demons and naga in the ruined cities, they had found a fragment of the ruins on a cliff overlooking the Coral Sea. For four hundred years they had lived there, hidden away from the horrors of their wounded world, watching storms batter the cliffs and the sun rise each morning as they fell asleep.

They did well. They had a small garden, for medicinal herbs and spices mostly, and Ethyst and her father handled the hunting and trapping. Her mother cooked whatever they brought and used the hides to make their clothes. They fashioned utensils from the bones, sewing needles and knives, her mother once made a set of windchimes. They would climb down from the cliffs to the shore at lowtide to catch fish and search the tide pools for seaweed and mussels.

Twice a year Ethyst and her father would make the trek to Talrendis Point. Over the summer they'd have fashioned jewelry from bone, shell, and stone to sell alongside the collection of pelts and hides. They'd trade it all for whatever they couldn't make or find on their own. Jars for making jam and storing food, rare spices from the west, fabric for mother to sew and spools of wool and silk thread for her to weave with. Sometimes, if they had done enough, they could indulge themselves with a few pastries and new books, bottles of fermented vegetables and expensive potions. Once there had been a blind man traveling with his tradesman son who had given them a beautiful lyre in exchange for a salve that would ease the pain in his joints.

The trip was long, three weeks of trekking to get from the coast to Talrendis, a month if the weather was poor or if the demons in the north were too near their usual paths or if the trail through the mountains was blocked. There had been years when they'd been unable to go more than once, or even at all, and those years had been the hardest although they'd always survived well and never had she gone hungry for more than a day or two in her life.

More than once they'd encountered the sorrowful spirits of the Highborne haunting empty ruins or forgotten paths, and even more common was running into a lone satyr or two as they went about collecting the agents for their twisted rituals. Ethyst could recall a year when the bottom of their hidden trail down from the clifftop had been blocked by a band of them, more than all three of them combined could handle at once in a fight. It was autumn and the winter would soon be upon them. There were supplies they needed, but were unable to get with the satyr down there, and every day they feared that they would discover the path and venture up to where they would be trapped on the edge of the cliff that had been their refuge for centuries. The few weeks that the satyr had inhabited that camp had been the most terrifying she had experienced in her life. Not even nearly being mauled to death by a starving wolf and poisoned by a chimera had lived up to the fear of being discovered by the creatures that had plagued her nightmares as a little girl. And nothing had compared to the thought of losing her family.

With the loss of her father, Ethyst learned that nothing in the world could _ever_ compare to losing them, and that her thoughts had not even been close to just how terrible it truly felt.


	2. The End of the Long Vigil

Ethyst had been so sure that they would both come home, in spite of her terror at the idea of losing them. As she watched them disappear out of sight around the bend of the path with the envoy from Talrendis Point, she had been certain they would both come home together. She had refused to believe, or even entertain the idea of, anything else.

Her mother was an incredible healer. She had been one of the most gifted back in her time spent with the sisterhood. She was so blessed by Elune, even today, and four centuries was so little a time in comparison to her mother's long life. If Elune's love never dimmed, as her mother claimed to that very morning, then surely she would be just as watched over now as she was ten thousand years ago.

Father was still such a capable fighter as well. He had been nothing but a novice foot soldier back in the War of the Ancients, in the last ten millennia he had honed his skills through the Long Vigil and then through protecting and providing for his wife and daughter. He had made sure to teach Ethyst everything he knew from childhood. Sparring together was a daily occurrence, and still she learned from him even now. She had witnessed, and experienced, what happened to those who faced him and his blade or bow. She had watched as a little girl while he took down animals twice his size, when he had fought that lone satyr and struck its heart before it had cast a single dark spell upon them. He had battled stray demons, and in recent years the occasional naga down by the shore.

She had been so confident in her parents' skills that she had wanted to go with them. She had wanted to prove to them that she was capable, wanted to defend her world just as her parents had. It would have been a mark of adulthood, proof that she wasn't a little girl anymore. So badly she wanted to make them proud. But both of her parents had forbidden her from accompanying them. The call was for soldiers, not civilians, and for those who were skilled enough to fight the Legion. They needed veterans, the experienced fighters who had survived the first demonic invasion, who knew what they were up against. They didn't need younglings who hadn't fought anything bigger than a bear or a chimera. For those reasons the envoy had agreed with her parents, and she had been left to defend their home in their absence. And however slightly embittered she was at their refusal, she had her own duty to her home and to her parents here at the edge of the Coral Sea.

She was alone for half a year with no one but her reflection for company. Dozens of times she had considered breaking the rules and following her parents or venturing to Talrendis Point on her own. But she stayed through the rest of that spring and summer, until summer disappeared into autumn and only then did she pack her bags and make her way to Talrendis. She had only made the trip one time on her own before when Father had an infected wound on his leg from a fight with a diseased wolf and the infection was proving more stubborn than usual to cleanse.

She remembered the freedom she'd felt during that first trip on her own, how for many months after returning home, she had entertained going off on her own again. Once more, the trip felt so liberating, and even more so now because of the lack of companionship she'd endured for so many months. The period of time that had passed since her parents left was so little, but it was the longest she'd spent away from either of them. She missed them so dearly and was so caught up in her loneliness that she left a few days earlier than usual, eager for the company that awaited her in Talrendis and the distraction that the trip provided.

It had been a warm year thus far and autumn had little effect compared to the usual. It made the trip all the better, without the bitter wind of previous years to chill her skin as she slept in the boughs of ancient trees during the day, and clear nights with Elune to guide her every step.

As she traveled, she had contemplated the state of her homeland. Azshara existed in a state of perpetual autumn, but it certainly had seasons in the mountains and to the north and west. While the center of the country remained rather snow-free in winter, there was still a chill, and high on the cliffs where her home sat hidden there was always snow in the cold months.

Father had traveled far to the north when she was a child, during times when Mother was concerned with just how much of a demonic presence remained in the ruins of Eldarath and other ruined towers and temples surrounding the Bay of Storms. He'd gone east too, out to the Ravencrest Monument and the Ruined Reaches, and on a separate trip he'd gone north of the Bay, traveling the foothills of the mountains that formed the border with Winterspring and around the bay all the way to the Tower of Eldara and Temple of Arkkoran.

Ethyst did not remember the three months that he was away from home for the first trip, nor did she remember the nine months he spent on the last trip north, but she did remember the trip east because he had returned with old temple relics that Mother blessed and vowed to restore and offer up to Elune at the shrine beside their garden. She recalled her amazement and wonder at seeing such beautiful artifacts that had once been a part of a grander time. It had opened the door for her love of books as she read to learn their people's history. This was, perhaps, the one trait she shared with Mother.

As she had recalled such old memories from nearly three centuries earlier, she mulled over the vague remembrances of the tales of Zin Azshari and what had once been the land she traveled now. Finding books that didn't have a negative bias against the Highborne was hard, even harder was finding books without such a view that her parents would allow her to read. Her mother was adamant that arcane magics only brought about evil and destruction and her father, while less opinionated, seemed to agree.

Still, she had read what she could find and relished all parts of her people's history, good or bad, and as she traveled she gave her prayers to all those who had died in Azshara, Highborne or otherwise.

Talrendis had been much emptier that year than the years before. With most of the elder Kaldorei off fighting the most recent demonic threat, she was left with the disabled, the young like herself, or those who had little to no combat experience whatsoever. While liberating, her time in Talrendis left her rather hollow. Father knew almost everyone who passed through the little town and knew what to trade and who to trade it with. Though she'd learned much from him and met many people in her time traveling with him, many of the faces this year were unfamiliar to her.

The other younger elves were excited to meet her, though, and she excited to meet them. Most of them were nice, though a bit too excited for her taste, there were a few she could see herself forming bonds of friendship with if she spent enough time with them.

A green-haired boy by the name of Ayandir claimed to live down along the Southfury River with his younger brother, Fanethril, who had not come along with him this time. During her week long stay in Talrendis they had traded many items with each other and shared meals and stories. His company had been a great relief to her. Finally an end to the stifling loneliness that had overtaken her life in the last six months. She lamented to him the feelings of isolation she felt living so far away from the rest of her kind while her parents were gone. He, in return, opened up with his own tales of sadness at the loss of his father to a group of magic-starved Highborne a year ago. Both of them laughed after the initial pain of their losses passed, for neither of them had opened up to a stranger like this before.

When the autumn trade gathering came to a close and people, more slowly this year than usual, began to fade back into the forests, Ayandir asked her back to his encampment along the river. It had taken everything in Ethyst not to accept his offer. Despite how little she knew of him and how briefly they'd known each other, she knew she would miss his company and he had proven to be someone she enjoyed spending time with. Though she did not accept in the end, she promised to meet with him in the spring.

Returning home, she had felt more lonely than ever, and as she settled back into her usual routines, she itched to break them. But one winter morning as Ethyst prepared to go to sleep, three months after her return from Talrendis, her mother burst through the door of their small home and locked herself away. She waited and waited during the first few hours for her father to come through the door himself, but he never did.

The night when her mother finally emerged from the bedroom, the elderly priestess sat down at their small table across from her daughter and recounted the betrayal of her lifemate through tears of anger that burned her silver eyes.

"He claims to do this for us," she spat into the silence that filled the small house after her story was finished, "that he has seen what we are up against. He says that this _sacrifice_ was made for you and I…" She scowled and Ethyst had never seen such violence on her mother's face. "But where in such a selfish decision is sacrifice? Leaving us here to ponder his fate while he flounces off, denouncing the grace of Elune, to walk the path of a monster!" She covered her face with her hands and wept. "How could he abandon us?"

Ethyst found herself wondering the same thing.


End file.
